Ruminations and Fulminations

Topsy Turbany Spin

The headline on the Drudge Report reads “Clinton Staffers Circulated ‘Dressed’ Obama,” over a photo of Senator Obama in traditional Kenyan garb, including a turban. The photo was taken during a visit to Kenya.

Might the leaking Clinton staffers be attempting to make the African American Senator look Muslim, fully aware that such inneuendos have been spread in the past about the Senator whose name sounds like the mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks, Osama bin Laden.

According to the Clinton campaign, anyone who suggests that there is a divisive motivation behind the Drudge leak is themselves being divisive. Says Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams, “If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely. This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.”

Okay, now I get it. The Clinton staffers that, according to Drudge, leaked the turban photo were just trying to HELP their political opponent and bring Americans together! So naturally they chose that great unifier Drudge to spread the news. That was so considerate of them. But it turns out that the Obama campaign crassly tried to pass off the Clinton staffers’ thoughtful Drudge leak as an attack on the Clinton campaign.

GH schooled me off-line about the strawberries reference. It’s from The Caine Mutiny, and features Captain Queeg at his most paranoid. Forgive my cultural illiteracy. The clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9KlQPX1qiE

Quart of strawberries= racial reference.. “He has buck teeth to get strawberries through the fence.”sort of like “his parents would not let him play in a sand box, because the cats kept covering him up.”